


Half Agony

by Softlight



Series: Pierce My Soul [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, F/M, I promise a happy ending, Trigger warnings inside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:42:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22598785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Softlight/pseuds/Softlight
Summary: Blake thinks he’s cute.  She can’t deny that he’s cute, even if he’s a few years older than her and so full of passion that her bones ache from it.  He’s her mentor first, but she can’t help the way she wants his touch to linger when he corrects her.  She’s only thirteen, but he makes her want, and she realizes she’s never understood the word before now.A timeline of events.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Adam Taurus, Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Series: Pierce My Soul [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626085
Comments: 4
Kudos: 98





	Half Agony

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for some consent issues, abusive/manipulative relationship, gaslighting, and blood. I promise there's a happy ending. I'm all about survivor empowerment. Title from Jane Austen's "Persuasion".

Blake thinks he’s cute. She can’t deny that he’s cute, even if he’s a few years older than her and so full of passion that her bones ache from it. He’s her mentor first, but she can’t help the way she wants his touch to linger when he corrects her. She’s only thirteen, but he makes her want, and she realizes she’s never understood the word before now.

She thinks he has to know she likes him, but it’s only a crush. An infatuation, she knows, but she’s fallen hard and fast, and it’s hard to remain mature and sane when she feels like she’s drowning. It’s hard to not blush and think about a future with him, about fighting for justice and loving him and him loving her. An easy fantasy to slip into, hard to slip out of.

She’s thirteen, and he’s seventeen, and she knows it’s wrong to think about him the way she does. Blake wants him, and she may not know what that means in all its entirety, but she thinks about the way he holds himself and thinks he could hold her softly, even though he’s always so hard and stubborn.

He never crosses the line, even when they’re dripping with sweat and their faces are breaths apart and her heart is beating out of her chest and she knows that his has to be too. She’s not sure what she would do if he did, but she wants him to, wants him to be passionate about their cause _and_ her.

* * *

Blake’s fourteen, and it’s the day after her birthday, and he kisses her. They’re sparring, and his face is so close, and he drops his weapon and grabs her, pulls her close and he kisses her. She’s never kissed anyone before, and she’s ninety percent sure she’s doing it wrong, but his lips are soft when everything else about him is strong, and his fingers are in her hair and it feels good.

They break apart, and he’s breathing heavily but his forehead is against her’s. “I’ve been wanting to do that for so long,” he says, and she blushes. He pushes her hair back out of her face, and she smiles up at him.

They start dating after that. Not much changes, if she’s honest, but he touches her a lot more. His hands always manage to catch her hips during training, and when she gets frustrated during a spar he’ll kiss her forehead and make her even more frustrated. But she doesn’t hate it, even though she says she does.

He likes touching her, and she can’t help but laugh at the hickeys he leaves on her. “You’re mine,” he’d growl playfully, his eyes dark as he looked up at her. “All mine, Blake.” She likes it, likes someone wanting her. He wants her the way he does everything, passionately, and his affection never falters. Everything she gives him, he doubles back on her with twice the passion. It’s the best sort of exhausting.

She blushes when he calls her, “my darling,” or “my love,” but she can’t say she hates it. It feels like he’s holding all of her in his hands when he does, protecting her. It feels like a warm blanket on a cold day. It feels like home.

He always showers her with compliments, but she never doubts that he means them with his whole heart. Blake likes to press her hand against his chest and feel his heart beat as he talks to her. It’s always a steady beat, and it’s comforting. It’s never erratic and always sure of itself. He’s stabilizing.

* * *

She’s fifteen, and her birthday present is getting to see Ilia. Blake hadn’t realized she’d been on base, and apparently he had sworn Ilia to secrecy for weeks in order to make it a surprise for Blake’s birthday. She hadn’t gotten to see her friend in so long, even if it was only for a short while before Ilia shipped out again.

The night of her birthday, he sneaks into her tent. He had already left her roses and given her Ilia, but she had known for a while he had been planning on coming to her bed. He had been waiting for her to be ready, but she had felt his aching in his kisses. She wasn’t sure who it was more of a present for, but she wanted him. Blake knew that much. She wanted to touch his skin and crawl inside his chest and kiss him until she was senseless. She had wanted him for so long.

He came in and crawled onto her bed, staring into her eyes. “I love you,” he says, and all breath leaves her lungs.

“I love you too,” she says, more of on reaction than an actual response, because what else can she say to that? She’s loved him like she’s loved no one else, and she doesn’t know if that means she’s _in love_ with him but she knows she loves him, and that has to be enough. It has to be.

He moves to kiss her, and then hesitates. Slowly, so slowly, he peels back his mask, and she holds her breath. He never takes it off, even when he’s with her.

He puts it on her nightstand, his eyes never leaving her gaze. She cups his cheek, his right cheek, and kisses him just below the scar. “I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he says, voice deep and rolling. “So long as you’re by my side, Blake, I promise, I won’t let anyone hurt you.” His voice never wavered.

“I promise I’ll never leave your side,” she hears herself say, a promise too big for her to understand but she can already feel its weight around her. But she loves him, and why would she ever want to leave him?

His lips are on hers, and she feels like he’s trying to devour her. She lets him.

Blake’s back hits the mattress, and then he’s on top of her. She leans up to kiss him, but he pins her down, a smirk on his face. All she can do is lay there. His kisses start moving down her neck, his teeth nipping at her skin in a way she knows will leave marks. At least Ilia didn’t see her all marked up.

He seems intent on touching every inch of her skin with his lips, pawing at her shirt to get it off. She moves to help him, but he growls and she lays back down, lets him peel off her top and leave her in her bra. There’s no doubt in her mind that he’ll take that off later too, but for now she revels in the little covering she has left.

He throws her shirt in a corner of her tent before sitting up and stripping off his jacket and his top and tossing them in the same corner. It’ll all be wrinkled tomorrow. His chest heaves, hard and scarred. She’s touched it enough to know which scars still hurt and which scars haunt him. There’s a new cut just below his ribs, still angry red and scabbed. She reaches to touch it, to soothe him, but he grabs her hand and pins her down again.

“Tonight is all about you, my darling,” he says. His eyes are dark. Never breaking eye contact, he kisses down her sternum and his free fingers move to unbutton her pants.

A part of her wants to tell him to wait, to stop. But the rest of her silences that part, the rest of her wants him to keep going, and she closes her eyes as he slides off her pants. She’s never been this bare before him.

“You are so beautiful,” he praises, and she feels a blush come over her cheeks and her chest. “Look at me.” She does. His lips curl upwards in a soft smile. “You’re all mine, Blake.” She nods, and she can feel her heart beating out of her chest. “I love you.” And then he’s touching her, his fingers probing at her, in her, and she’s gasping and writhing against the mattress and feels like she’s betraying herself.

“That’s my girl,” he croons as something builds and explodes inside her. It feels like a star imploding in on itself, and it takes her a minute to catch her breath; he’s already unbuckling his belt and sliding off his pants.

She stills as he dances over her waist, her hips, clutches the side hard enough to leave bruises. It’s a reminder that he’s there, that he wants her, and she can’t hate them now. Later, she knows, she’ll poke them and whimper at the touch.

He pulls down her underwear, and instead of throwing them in the corner, he places them next to his mask. Her heartbeat quickens as he looms over her and positions himself.

“Wait, Adam, wait-” The words spill out of her mouth and she can’t stop them, can’t stop him because he’s already inside her.

A low, dark chuckle, and a hand on her cheek. “Sorry, love. Got overexcited. Figured it would be best to rip the bandaid off.” She nods, and she swallows the tears building in her eyes back. She doesn’t know why her eyes are misting, it’s silly. She’s silly.

It’s over-sensitive with him inside her so soon, but he slowly pistons in and out of, hand grabbing her hip and digging in. She grabs his back and her fingers claw into his skin, but either he doesn’t notice or he doesn’t care. She thinks she breaks skin, and she clenches around him in fear at the realization. He simply moans in her ear, whispering words that she can’t bear to understand as his pace quickens.

The hand up by her face twists itself into her hair and _pulls_ , not hard enough for her to scream but hard enough for her to feel it. Her fingers dig in deeper to his back.

“So beautiful for me, Blake,” he breathes above her. He’s so focused.

He kisses her neck, sucks on it, and his lips are cool to the heat of her skin. She hears herself moan in response, but she’s not sure if she can blush anymore. Her skin feels like it’s on fire as it is. She can’t take anymore.

The hand on her hip reaches up and palms her chest, going inside her bra. She swallows thickly. He’s rubbing it, squeezing it, _pinching_ it, and he laughs at her choked gasps. “You don’t have to keep quiet. I quite like hearing you.” She can’t tell what kind of noise breaks out of her throat then, but it seems to please him.

His pace quickens, his hips slamming against her own. She grunts. It’s not going to be fun walking tomorrow. He groans, and then he pulsates inside her. Her fingers curl deeper into his back as he slides out. His chest is heaving, and he sits up. “You’re amazing,” he says. “Amazing, and all mine.” He kisses the top of her forehead, and she smiles at the sentiment. Blake can feel him leaking out of her, and she’s going to need to figure out how to clean herself. It’s an odd feeling, and even as she stares at him she can’t help but focus on it.

He pulls up his pants, slicking back his hair. “Training tomorrow morning?”

“Yeah, sounds good.” She pauses as he moves to put on his shirt and jacket. “Do you want to stay the night here?”

He shakes his head, sliding his mask back into place. “I have a meeting with Sienna in the morning.”

“You can still sleep here.” Blake pats the pillow next to her.

“Another time, my love.” He sits back down on the bed and thumbs her cheek. She leans into his touch. “I need to get papers from my tent anyways.”

Blake nods. Her heart seizes.

He kisses her goodnight, and then he’s gone.

* * *

She’s still fifteen when he kills someone for the first time. He comes back to her covered in sweat, sword crusted over with dried blood. He’s thrumming with energy but his face is still.

“What did you _do_?” she asks, holding herself. She can’t hide the horror in her voice.

“I did what I had to do.” He sits down on his bed and starts cleaning his blade. He’s not looking her in the eye, and she doesn’t think it’s from shame. The metallic scent fills the air. “It just happened.”

“Things like that don’t just happen.”

He looks her in the eyes, his still hidden behind the mask. “I’m out there fighting for our cause, for us, and when you fight, people get hurt. I can’t change that.” His voice is sharp, and she winces.

“I know, I just…” She trails off, but he nods. His posture softens.

“My idealistic little Blake,” he says, a smile on his face. He puts his sword down and his hand beckons her forward. “Come here.” She does.

He takes her into his lap and lets them fall backwards onto the bed as he pets her hair. “This is war, my love. I can’t change that, no matter how much you want to. I can’t abandon our cause anymore than you can, and that means things get messy. You understand?” She nods, burying her face in the space between his neck and his chest.

“That’s why I need you with me. You keep me stabilized in all this.” His hands are curling into her hair. “You keep me going.” She swallows thickly.

“I’ll always be here for you, then.” She tries to smile at that, but it feels fake, and she’s grateful he can’t see her face.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

His hands keep stroking her back, and she closes her eyes. In her mind, they’re still wet and red.

* * *

She’s sixteen when she can’t ignore it anymore. He’s different. Or maybe he’s the same and she’s just noticing, but she can’t help but see more of him. It scares her.

She sees the rage that fills him when he kills, the unhinged joy that sparks through him for a moment during the kill, no matter how he tries to hide it. If he even is trying to hide it. She sees the hardness in his voice, the way it armors him and hides whatever softness he still has left. She barely sees his softness anymore. When he’s with her, it’s all passion still, but he leaves more bruises on her when they’re together than when they spar.

He comes back covered in blood more missions than not. His passion for their cause only grows, and he seems infatuated with it, desperate for it. It terrifies her how far he’s willing to go for them. She used to feel safe by his measures. Now, when she sees his sword unsheathed, she shakes.

Blake wants to talk about it with someone, but who can she turn to? Ilia is always away on missions, and her family left. There’s no one left for her. No one except Adam.

All she can see now is the blood they shed. She looks at her hands and wonders when they will be bloodied beyond hope of bleaching. Blake never wanted this. She wanted, wants, equality, not bloodshed. She’s starting to see why her parents left, but whenever those thoughts appear she drowns herself in guilt.

He doesn’t understand her apprehension at the violence. It’s working, he tells her with a furrowed brow, why would you want to go back? She can’t voice how it feels wrong, how it makes her skin crawl and how sometimes he makes her feel sick. She loves him, she has to love him, doesn’t she? But she can’t help but notice the fear interlocked with her heart every time he comes near her. He’s not her Adam. Maybe he never was.

* * *

Separating the train cars was the hardest decision of her life. Harder than leaving her family, harder than anything. She's sixteen, and life shouldn't be this hard. 

She hadn’t known she was going to. Not really. Blake had thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it, but she didn’t think she could do it. She did, though. She was free. Free from the White Fang, free from senseless violence, free from Adam.

Except she wasn’t. His voice followed her when she trained, and she could feel his gaze on her whenever she was alone. He was going to come after her, he was going to find her. And then what? She had no idea. But he was bound to be angry, and that was enough to keep her up at night.

Becoming a Huntress is her saving grace. She passes the exam with ease, and it feels right. For the first time in a long time, using her skills to protect feels good. She feels like everything slides into place, and her future is spread out for her, uncertain but within reach. She can be a Huntress, she can protect, she can clean the blood from her hands by preventing its spilling in the first place.

* * *

She’s seventeen, and meeting Ruby and Yang and Weiss is a lifeboat she didn’t know she needed. At first, everytime she looks at Weiss she thinks of the brand across his face, and she hopes that Weiss doesn’t notice because she may be a Schnee but, more importantly, she’s Weiss, and she can’t hold it against her. Not when she forgives Blake.

Ruby is so young, and she can’t believe she was ever so young but Ruby is already handling herself. She’s silly and lighthearted, but she needs that. Blake looks at her leader and finds hope looking back. They have a purpose, a good one, and they’re supposed to be heroes. She trusts Ruby to lead them, kindness first.

And Yang is her partner. She grounds her in a way that she didn’t know she needed. She almost cries when Yang makes her slow down in her search, but she thinks it was tears of relief. Someone stopped her, someone cared enough to tell her to slow down. Someone is there for her.

Her team is there for her. And that’s more than she ever thought she deserved.

* * *

She’s running, because she’s always running, and then she sees him, and it feels like all her nightmares come to life. Every inch of her goes cold. He smiles and moves towards her, still calling her “my darling” as if nothing has changed. But she moves to run, and she hears the anger in his voice as it grows and consumes him.

He still loves her. She hears it in his voice. But he loves her the way he does everything now, with spite. She is not meant to be held and cherished but consumed and brought down to her knees before him. She is his for the taking in his eyes, belongs to him.

She’s fighting him before she can think twice, and the threat in his voice makes her realize how much he wants to hurt her. He kills the Grimm, not to spare her, but to prolong her suffering. He doesn’t want her dead, not yet, but he wants her to hurt, and he is an expert in hurting.

She’s still his love, his possession, and she disobeyed him. She ruined his idea of the future, and now he’s going to ruin hers.

He still doesn’t understand why she left. He doesn’t use his sword and his Semblance against her but his fists. He wants her to feel his hands on her and remember. He’s so much stronger than her, even with her new training, and fear is paralyzing her every nerve. She can’t win, but she’s trying, and she’s not surrendering. Not to him.

And then she sees Yang, and all of her insides are ripped out and evident in her face. He can see what she can’t, sees her vulnerability, and he knows. He knows, and she still hasn’t figured it out, but he knows.

Yang, her Yang, fights for her, moves to protect her, and she begs her to stop. Blake would rather go back to him and suffer his punishment, suffer him for the rest of her life, than let Yang get hurt.

And she does get hurt. And it’s all Blake’s fault.

She watches him cut her head off as she runs away, Yang in her arms. Her heart is crumbling, and her lungs are aching, but she has to get Yang to safety, Yang is what matters. She can’t think about Adam, can’t think about how he wants her dead, can’t think about how he wants her to suffer, can’t think about it can’t think can’t think can’t think-

She somehow manages to get Yang to safety. She can’t do anything more than sob her apologies and curl herself around Yang’s body. It’s all her fault.

It’s all her fault.

It’s all her fault.

It’s all her fault.

Running is the only choice. She can’t let her team suffer for her mistakes, her past. She won’t let them.

She won’t.

* * *

Going home to Menagerie isn’t the scariest thing she’s ever done, but it’s up there. She’s eighteen, and she feels safe for all of two seconds before the White Fang forces itself back into her life. She should have known, should have anticipated. But she didn’t.

Seeing Ilia is a gut-punch. She wants to tell her everything, and not just about the horrors the White Fang has inflicted but about Adam and what he did to her. She doesn’t know what to call it. She doesn’t know if she was abused or raped or manipulated or what, but she knows she never said yes. She wants her friend to understand on so many levels, _she_ wants to understand herself what happened because she can’t wrap her mind around it. She was so young.

Ilia confessing her feelings for her broke something inside her. Ilia saw so much and so little of her and Adam, and, as much shame as she feels for leaving her friend in the reel, she burns. Ilia still doesn’t know, still doesn’t understand what she went through. And how could she? She didn’t see enough to know. Adam kept her from Blake, isolated her so she was alone, and now Ilia is blaming her for being obsessed with him.

Maybe she was. But he wouldn’t have had her any other way.

Blake is eighteen, she’s not that girl anymore, and she has a reason to fight. She isn’t alone, and she can’t keep pushing people away. She’s trying to learn and relearn how to be a person with loved ones again, and maybe she’s failing, but she’s trying. She just hopes it is enough for the next time she sees her team.

Sun is great, he’s grounding, but he’s not her team, he’s not a part of her in the way they are. She pulled herself out of the sinkhole that the White Fang dragged her into with their help, even if they didn’t realize it. They were the ones that made her feel like a person again, and she owes them so much. More than she can ever repay.

Going to Haven is an easy choice, in the end. It wasn’t much of a choice so much as a need to do right, to do good, to be a Huntress. Knowing she will be confronting Adam scares her still, but she refuses to let her fear stop her from doing good. She won’t run from him if it means saving lives.

Letting him go is harder. She wants to put him out of her mind, once and for all, make him pay for what he’s done, but there are bigger things at work than him, and she owes her team, no, she owes herself that much. Still, watching him slink off is terrifying when she knows he’ll never stop hunting her down.

Fighting with her team feels as natural as breathing. Blake has missed this, and even if the circumstances couldn’t be worse, she’s glad she found them. Seeing them almost breaks her resolve, makes her want to run from the shame and the guilt, but they’re hers, and she’s theirs. Seeing Yang is what truly tests her, though. The new arm makes bile rise in her throat from guilt, but she looks good. And somehow, some way, she doesn’t hate her.

She may have gone home to Menagerie, but she left a piece of her heart with her team. It feels good to be reunited with it, and she’s home once more.

* * *

Blake is eighteen, and she’s failing. She’s overeager with Yang, and that just makes everything worse, but she can’t help the guilt that plagues her. It’s her fault, even if no one blames her. She’s trying too hard, and it’s just making things worse, but she can’t help it. She wants to cling to them, to Yang, but they’re like sand falling through her palms.

Fighting with them, though, that’s easy. It feels right to fight besides them again, and in battle the weight lifts from her chest and it almost feels normal again.

After the fight, she swears she sees him, and every inch of her goes cold. Her breathing sharpens, and it takes effort to realize he wasn’t there. She hopes. No, he wasn’t there, because that would be ridiculous, and her mind is playing tricks on her. It does that. She sees him, always out of the corner of her eye, but always looming. Watching. Waiting.

She can’t digest it before the train crashes, and then they have bigger problems to deal with. Blake has no idea where to even begin with processing Ozpin’s lies, so she doesn’t. She focuses instead on surviving the night, and maybe making things up to Yang.

She doesn’t know what she did. Seeing Yang shake like that, hearing her admit something she knew took so much effort, it made her want to curl up with her and shut the doors to the world. Forget Ozpin, forget Adam, and just breathe for two minutes.

Instead, she tells Yang about what he did. How he made her feel miniscule, how he got in her head. It’s as close to admitting what happened to her, even if she doesn’t fully understand what happened. She can’t find a word that fits what he did, but telling Yang feels good. Letting her know she’s not alone feels good.

And then she ruins it. She promised her she wouldn’t leave, and she means it, in a way she never thought herself possible, with conviction she never thought possible. Blake doesn’t want to leave Yang ever again, because it wouldn’t be fair to her. She owes her partner that much, and, even if she didn’t, she wants to stay with her. She wants to be there for her, protect her because the world is terrifying and she’s already caused her to get hurt once, she can’t let Yang get hurt again.

She doesn’t understand how she’s ruined their friendship yet again, but she knows she’s ruined it, and it’s all her fault.

* * *

He’s there. He’s there, and he’s come to kill her.

She’s running, but he finds her, he always finds her. She can’t run fast enough, she can’t fight hard enough. She’s going to die, she’s eighteen and she’s going to die, but not without a fight. Not without making him work for it.

He cuts off her coat, and everything around her freezes. It feels like a layer of protection is gone, and it doesn’t help that the last time he had her in that state of undress, he was punishing her. It feels like a game to him, she realizes. He’s determined to humiliate her and grind her into the earth.

He’s shooting to kill, and he’s still screaming about how she needed to behave for him, as if she was his pet. As if it was her job to please him. And maybe it was, but it was never a job she agreed to. Guilt surges in her, and it takes too much to remind herself his actions are not her fault, his actions are not her fault, his actions are not-

And then he hits her. It’s worse than anything he had ever done before, somehow, and she can’t get up. She staggers to her feet, but he just knocks her back down again. He’s playing with her. He’s enjoying this. He likes hurting her, he always has.

He breaks Gambol Shroud.

He has her on the ground, at his mercy.

He takes off the mask, and she can’t help but look away. The scar is as raised and horrible as she remembered.

“People hurt me long before we met. All sorts of people, in all sorts of ways. But no one hurt me quite like you.” His voice is raw. “You didn’t leave scars. You just left me alone.”

His actions are not her fault. His actions are not her fault. His actions are not-

The roar of an engine interupts her thoughts, soft enough that she knows Adam can’t hear it, but she can. Her heart races, and it catches in her throat. Yang.

He stabs her in the same place, and she watches him kill her again.

“I’m not alone.”

Seeing Bumblebee smash into him is the best damn thing she’s seen in a long time.

The rage in his face at seeing Yang makes her realize so much, but it’s not the time. It’s not the time, but she can’t get up, she needs to help Yang, but she can’t. She can only watch as they fight. Watching her, though, watching her is beautiful.

He sees them look at each other, sees the face she used to reserve for him, and she sees him try to kill Yang, and she can’t do anything, can’t do anything yet again. But Yang is strong, and she doesn’t need protecting, and now she gets it but it is not the time.

He sneers at Yang, and it makes her see red. She grabs her hand, her shaking hand, and she squeezes. _I’m here, I promised I would be here_.

“She’s not protecting me, Adam. And I’m not protecting her. We’re protecting each other.”

She’s holding her hand, and it feels right.

“I have people who actually care about me, and I promised I’d never leave them again. So I’m not dying now.” Yang squeezes back, and it feels like she’s holding her heart in her hands.

“You know, she made a promise to me once. That she’d always be at my side. And look how well she’s kept it.”

Before she can react, before she can explain, Yang is on him. “Did she make that promise to you? Or to the person you were pretending to be?” Definitely not the time to sort through her feelings, but she warms at her words. She doesn’t have to explain, she knows Yang won’t ask that of her, but she wants to. Later.

“So I just wasn’t good enough for you.”

“You know it’s so much more than that.” His face crumples, but his mask is back up just as quickly as it fell.

Fighting with Yang against him feels karmic. It makes her feel powerful, it makes her feel right. She didn’t want to fight, but this is justice. Not his spite, not his methods, not his violence.

He slams her against the cliff, and it’s her turn to crumple. She can’t help Yang if she dies.

But Yang knocks him into the earth, and then she hits him, she hits him, and oh, how the tables have turned. She slams her blade into his chest without a second thought, and she feels Yang’s blade come through just below hers, and all she feels is anger and spite and passion and justice.

“Oh.”

She watches him stagger off the cliff, and then she breaks.

She drops the blade, bloodied and red, so red, red like his hands on her, his hands were on her, his bloody hands are now her hands, but Yang is there in a heartbeat, and she needs to tell her, she needs to tell her more than anything-

“I’m not going to break my promise, I swear,” she sobs, but Yang holds her. She already knows, but she can’t stop sobbing and hiccuping.

He’s gone.

* * *

“He- Adam hurt me. I can’t- he used to lie to me, you know? He would keep me from Ilia. He would tell me violence was the only option, tell me he had no choice, and the sick part is I believed every word that came out of his mouth, never dared to think beyond him.”

“I thought I loved him. And maybe I did, at first, but eventually I was just going through the motions. It was habitual, and it seemed so normal. Him hurting me was normal, him minimizing me was normal, it was all so normal. I didn’t- I couldn’t realize that it wasn’t.”

“And the promises… I made those promises, I promised I would never leave, but it was never my choice to say that. I feel like I was always cornered into saying it, even when I still meant it. He promised he would protect me if I never left his side, and what else could I say to that?”

Deep breath.

“I still have dreams about him hurting me. And I can’t always tell if they’re dreams or memories. He’s going to be with me for the rest of my life, and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand that he made such an impact on me, I can’t stand the scars he’s left, I can’t stand that I’m not strong enough to-”

“Hey,” Yang says, cupping her face. “You _are_ strong. You are brave, and beautiful, and strong enough. He hurt you, but he does not define you. You define you. Your experiences may have shaped you, but you’re the one that decides how to come out of them. And you decided to leave, which shows how incredibly strong and brave you are. He may be with you for the rest of your life, but he’s not defining your life.” She tucked a stray piece of hair behind Blake’s face, metal hand creaking. “You define your life.”

She leans into her touch and sighs, wiping at her eyes. “When did you get so wise?” she asks, voice barely above a croak, but she can’t hold back her laugh.

“Taiyang likes to get all introspective sometimes. Guess it rubbed off.”

“Oh no, I’m going to have to meet your father at some point,” she groans, flopping backwards onto the bed.

“He’s not that bad, I promise.” Yang flops down next to her, and Blake curls into her. “He’s going to like you, because I like you.”

“Oh, you like me?”

She punches her, but it’s soft. Yang would never leave bruises. Her hands are always soft with her, gentle and loving. “Shut up.”

Blake is staring into her eyes, and she hesitantly reaches to push Yang’s hair behind her ear. Yang stills, but she reaches for Blake’s other hand and holds it. “I like you too,” she says with a smile.

“Good, because that would make this super awkward if you didn’t.”

Blake tosses her head back and laughs. It feels good, it’s the kind of laugh that starts beneath her ribs and flows upward.

She’s nineteen, and the world is a mess, but she’s safe. She’s home, and she has people to protect who want to protect her too. It’s not perfect, but it works.

She’s nineteen, and she thinks she’s cute.

**Author's Note:**

> Working on a Part II that will be much happier. Hope you enjoyed!  
> EDIT: PART II IS NOW UP!


End file.
